Birdman Is a Trip (And A Sure-Fire Contender For Award Season)

Birdman’s plot is this: Michael Keaton plays a superhero angling for a comeback. Get it?

A funny thing happened on the way to the cinema. While the world was abuzz with (well-deserved) Gone Girl mania, a quirky little comedy called Birdman was creeping into view.

I’m not sure how this flew under the radar. Birdman boasts two A-list blonde stunners, Naomi Watts and Emma Stone. Brilliant Edward Norton, who can single-handedly bring movie magic to any script? He’s there, too. Oh, and Michael Keaton. He’s the star.

Michael Keaton? Yeah, he plays around with his fame a little bit, popping up on 30 Rock or as a voice in Toy Story 3. But many of us haven’t really seen him since Batman Returns—in 1992.

So here’s the fun part: In Birdman (Batman/Birdman, are you catching on yet?), he plays an actor who was once super-famous for playing a superhero, but then sort of faded into obscurity. And now he wants a comeback.

Get it?

The director of all this insider-y fun is the great Alejandro González Iñárritu, master of intensity in such films as Babel and 21 Grams – and his breakout hit, Amores Perros.

With Iñárritu behind the scenes, and the stars of Beetlejuice and The Illusionist in front of the camera, Birdman has been deemed dark comedy at its finest. The plot goes something like this: Keaton’s character, Riggan, dreams up a comeback that shuns Hollywood in favor of directing and starting in a Broadway play. He is pretty desperate to pull this whole thing off, so of course something terrible happens. Mere days before the premiere, an accident on set leaves him in need of a costar—one who will make him look good. And that’s where Norton’s Mike comes in. All the while, Riggan/Keaton is attempting to be a good dad to daughter Sam (Emma Stone), who’s quite a handful.

Movie buffs, stop reading this and get to the theater now. The dialogue is so sprinkled with trivia and inside digs that you’ll be chuckling your way through the whole thing.